Malcolm X | Criticism

SOURCE: "The Man and His Mission," in Freedomways, Winter, 1966, pp. 48-52.

In the following review of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Clarke indicates a high regard for Malcolm X's personal accomplishments and notes while the autobiography would have benefitted from "editing and pruning," it is effective in imparting the nature of Malcolm X and his achievements.

The man best known as Malcolm X lived three distinct and interrelated lives under the respective names, Malcolm Little, Malcolm X and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Any honest attempt to understand the total man must begin with some understanding of the significant components that went into his making. The racist society that produced and killed Malcolm X is responsible for what he was and for destroying what he could have been. He had the greatest leadership potential of any person to emerge directly from the black proletariat in this country. In another time...